My life flashed before my eyes, just like I’d read about it happening to people who were having near-death experiences. As I sat across the table from the two battered and emotionally broken men, I saw myself as a teenager, crying helplessly in my room after suffering a beating with a belt. My mother was cooking in the kitchen and pretending like it hadn’t happened, like I hadn’t just been beaten down like a piece of trash by a man who treated women like possessions. A piece of me knew she was relieved it was me suffering his ire this time and not her. It made me hate her and at the same time drove me into myself, as I realized finally that I was truly alone in the world. My father was long gone, and now I was motherless too. I had to come up with a plan. A good one. Something that would get me out of this pit of a life and back to a place where I could find love and maybe even a haven from the anger that surrounded me everywhere I went.
And so the lifeplan had been born. I picked up a pencil that day and wrote the outline down, and over the course of several months refined it until it was perfect. It got me out of that miserable place with excellent grades that translated into full scholarships to college. I disappeared from my mother’s toxic influence and entered a world of my own making. A carefully crafted script brought me friends and more success in college and then acceptance to law school. Step by step, I followed that plan until I took a couple days off to go to Las Vegas. It was the first time I’d gone off-plan in ten years and look where it had gotten me.
I looked at Bradley, a man I had thought I knew who now I suspected I really didn’t. Where had he learned to fight like that? And he’d mentioned mistakes he’d made, things he’d done that I would probably be asked to forgive him for. He was supposed to be my husband, but he really wasn’t husband material. Not when I suffered from feelings of regret every time I looked at him.
I looked at Mack. A man I didn’t quite know as well as I should but who I wanted to know more of. He had honor, strength, and patience like I could never imagine possessing myself. He shouldered blame when he didn’t need to. He went out of his way not to hurt people. And the light shining out of his eyes told me that he really cared about me. Maybe if I was lucky some day, he could really learn to love me.
Mack’s hand slid out across the table and waited for mine, his palm opened up.
“Andie?” Bradley sounded vulnerable, which was a first in my experience. I looked at him, begging him with my eyes to let me go. He cast his eyes down, sighing heavily. “Go ahead. I know what you want.”
I looked at Angus and he just nodded, encouraging me.
Maeve was standing behind me, so I twisted around to see her. She nodded too, a tear slipping out of the corner of her eye.
I swallowed my fear and reached my trembling hand up out of my lap, putting it in Mack’s. The balm of love coated my heart with its healing magic when he closed his fingers around mine. He looked over at Bradley as he put his ice pack down. He held out his free hand. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to screw everything up for you. But she was mine first, and I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Bradley stared at Mack’s hand for a few seconds before taking it and shaking it hard. “The best man won. Nothing I can do about that.”
His words of defeat made my heart ache for what I’d done to him.
“I’m so sorry, Bradley. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear it.”
He stood, his chair scraping out behind him. “I know. Listen, I need to get going. I have a plane to catch.”
“You can stay here until tomorrow if you want,” offered Maeve.
“No, thanks. I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He waved at me with a weak flick of his hand and then he was gone.
After he left, Grandma Lettie came in and stood where he’d just been.
“So. We got things worked out?” She looked from Mack to me.
“No, not exactly,” Mack said, pulling his hand from mine.
My face went white as all the blood drained from my head and a wave of dizziness almost took me down. I saw it coming now. The big break up. The humiliation. The end. The end of me.
He reached into his front pocket and slid out of his chair at the same time. “I was going to wait and do this later, but I guess now’s as good a time as any.”
He went down onto his knees next to my chair and put his hand on the arm of it, pushing it out so that I was facing him.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, crying all over again. I was so confused I had no idea what was going to happen next.
He held up a small, black velvet box and smiled, his split lip starting to bleed again. I took a napkin from Maeve and dabbed at it, smiling through my tears as I tried to stave off the heart attack I could feel coming.
“Andie. Crazy girl. I met you two years ago and I fell in love with you. The minute you threw that drink on me, I knew I was done.” He opened up the box to reveal a sparkling square-cut diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds that were all set in a band of diamonds. I’d never seen so much light flashing out of a piece of jewelry in my life.
“Wow, that’s a beaut,” said Grandma Lettie in a hushed voice.
He responded to her but his eyes never left mine. “I had to get her something that would remind her of where we met. All those lights … remember Andie?”
I nodded, unable to speak. Only sobs could come out.